“So they’re real y hostages to fortune. And you have been too busy to do anything about it. But now you have enough free time to feel guilty.”
The Empress gave him yet another look. “Pretty much, yes.”
“And the pig man fits how?”
“He tel s me what he thinks after I admit that I can’t figure out where they are.”
“The people you trusted?”
“Kavelin has col apsed. People have scattered. Some are dead. The kingdom was stable when I left. But Bragi did what he did and everything came apart.”
Lord Ssu-ma held his tongue. He waited.
“The children disappeared early.”
Shih-ka’i wondered how near the wind of fact she was sailing. Certainly she was not being one hundred percent forthright—though she herself might head up the file of those she was deceiving.
“Actual y, I do have an idea where they are, but I don’t know.
I’m not even sure that they’re stil alive. If they’re where I fear, there’l be no way to reach them.” Shih-ka’i needed no more clues. “You’re afraid the Empire Destroyer has them.”
“Yes.” She said no more. He knew that Varthlokkur’s wife was the sister of the man she had been unable to deny.
“Would he try to use them to make you to do something against the interests of the Empire?”
“The fear lurks behind my concern for their welfare. He slipped into a bizarre mental state just before Kavelin began to fal apart.”
Frankly puzzled, Shih-ka’i again asked, “And I fit how?”
“You are a marvelous sounding board.”
“Real y?” Startled.
“Absolutely. Thanks to you, I now know exactly what I’l do.” Shih-ka’i was too lost to say anything, good, bad, indifferent, or wisecrack. “Pleased to be of service. There was something else?”
She frowned, then admitted, “Yes. About the prisoner, Ragnarson. We need to get some use out of him.” That or kil him, in Shih-ka’i’s estimation. But he did face the problem of owing Ragnarson a life.
“Be aware that my peasant background marked me with a tendency to rigid views of right, wrong, and the nature of one’s honorable obligations.”
The Empress looked him directly in the eye. “I know he saved your life at Lioantung. You repaid him after you defeated him.”
“I’m not comfortably sure of that. There are no definitive rules of obligation. Was mine discharged when I salvaged him and had the healers put him back together? He saved me by brushing a bal ista shaft aside—the consequences of which stretch out into time unknown. So must I be his protector forever? How deep is my obligation to others who have done me kindnesses?”
The Empress did not respond right away. Her upbringing had encouraged more flexible attitudes. Then she had spent years amongst westerners whose ideals about honor far surpassed what even Shih-ka’i considered rational.
“Are you suffering some crisis of conscience? It seems you’re thinking about more than our guest in the Karkha Tower.”
“I cannot hide from your matchless eye, Empress. A crisis of conscience indeed, not concerning the erstwhile king of Kavelin. If you insist that I have discharged my obligation to Ragnarson I’l defer to your judgment. My present moral conundrum is more perilous. For me.”
Silent seconds stretched. The Empress stared but showed no abiding interest in his prattle.
Ice crept up Shih-ka’i’s spine. Enough! “Pardon me, Empress. My peasant side waxed a little strong for a moment.”
“That’s worth considering sometime when we’re not distracted.”
“What?”
“You’ve been around a long time. You were among the last students taken from outside the senior castes. But in my grandfather’s time only talent and merit counted.”
“Dedication helped, as did a capacity to remain placid in the face of provocation. But you are correct. The ideals that boosted the early empire have been subverted. The get of Tervola grow up with a sense of entitlement.”
“I mean to give that some thought once I’m no longer obsessing about my children.”
“Make a big sign.”
“What?”
“A joke. The underlying assumption being that Varthlokkur keeps an eye on you. To let him know you’re thinking about him and your children. I meant it as sil iness but a sign might actual y be a way to let him know you’d like to have a conversation.”
“That’s insanity on the hoof—and might work. It would for sure let me know if the old bastard is looking over my shoulder.”
“Yes.” Lord Ssu-ma thought this might be a good time to go away. He could niggle around Wen-chin again later.
The Empress said, “Go back to work. I’l do some thinking when there aren’t any distractions.”
Shih-ka’i bowed himself out, thoughts chaotic. No lifeguards had been present just now. Did that speak to Mist’s confidence or to her paranoia?
He stutter-stepped. He had no bodyguards of his own these days. He had not had a friend or close companion since Pan ku died at Lioantung. He had acquaintances. People with whom he worked.
His one shadow of a friend was hiding on an island outside the Empire, his very existence a death sentence for Ssuma Shih-ka’i.
...
Varthlokkur spent too much time being Haroun’s guardian angel, real y. Bin Yousif seldom needed help.
When the wizard was not a ghost behind that man’s shoulder he tried to keep watch on key players in the Lesser Kingdoms. Sometimes he checked on Bragi Ragnarson or went sneaking around some major personality in today’s Dread Empire.
Too often he wasted time trying to scry the future.
Once he had been a master of divination. The future was able to elude him only through ambiguity. He could look ahead for generations. Now he had trouble with days.
Weeks were impossible.
He was sure he knew why.
He devoted an hour a day considering how to gain an advantage on the Star Rider.
That had been accomplished a few times but never for long and never with a net positive result.
He let Nepanthe help with some of his less dangerous applications, especial y through the Winterstorm. That was simplicity itself. She needed only manipulate a few symbols.
“Varth. You need to see this.”
Her tone brought the wizard quickly. “Wel . Damn! Isn’t that interesting?”
“And clever.”
They looked at a blackboard centered inside a transparent globe. Chalked on that board in big block characters, in Kaveliner Wesson, was: Varthlokkur, where are my babies?
Board and globe were in Mist’s private office. She passed by once while they watched. “Passive message,” the wizard mused. “She assumes that I watch her.”
“Clever.”
“What?”
“She’s right.”
Varthlokkur grunted, then began to brood on the nature of the magic Mist was using. “Must be a bubble outside the local reality so visitors don’t notice. Maybe an offset in time.”
“She might just not let people in.”
“There’s that. But it’s so prosaic. That bubble…”
